, help me. which is the true one?" and lo and behold, a divine personage occurs to him- the angel moroni- and reveals these ancient plates that were buried in upstate new york, and he's given powers to translate them. and on these plates comes the book of mormon. and what does the book of mormon do? it places the mormons in the center of god's drama, right on the american frontier, which has absolutely unlimited potential. so you take spiritual power, a divine plan, revealed mythically, supernaturally, to a people who are then called upon to build zion, to build god's kingdom on earth, right at a time- and we're talking here, you know, jacksonian democracy- heading out across the frontier, building the great nation because god wants us to. well, what are the mormons going to do? they're going to restore the true christian church on earth. so with that kind of mythic power- and you know, we talked about doctrine guiding myth- but with that kind of mythic power behind them, the story then becomes absolutely fascinating in terms of what they were able to put up with. just a little bit more
